Device for manufacturing columnar curved tempered glass

ABSTRACT

The present invention discloses a device for processing columnar curved tempered glass. The device mainly comprises a glass heating furnace, a glass bending mechanism and a glass tempering mechanism connected sequentially, wherein the arrangement of each supporting roller in the rollers supporting the high temperature flat glass is changed from planar arrangement in space into curved arrangement corresponding to the shape of the glass to be formed, so that the glass bending mechanism enables the glass to suffer bending deformation. Transferring rollers for outputting the formed curved glass in the axial direction of the supporting roller are arranged at the clearance of the rollers of the bending mechanism. In the present invention, bending shaping and tempering of the high temperature flat glass are completed by two stations to break the normal procedure that bending shaping tempering are carried out by one bending appliance intensively, thereby providing a novel technological approach for processing columnar curved tempered glass.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to a device used for manufacturingcolumnar curved tempered glass.

BACKGROUND ART

The columnar curved tempered glass used in reality comprises two kinds,one is the equal arc columnar curved tempered glass as shown in FIG. 1,namely, the columnar curved tempered glass with cross section ofcircular arc; and the other one is the unequal arc columnar curvedtempered glass as shown in FIG. 2 (a, b, c and d), namely, the columnarcurved tempered glass with cross section curve comprising a plurality ofarc segments having different curvatures and/or straight segments.

A roller type bending device is usually used for processing the equalarc columnar curved tempered glass. Such bending device comprises aroller type bending mechanism and a chiller cooling mechanism, and therollers in the rollers bending mechanism are positioned between theupper and lower chillers in the chiller cooling mechanism. The rollertype bending mechanism is divided into two kinds according to theoperating mode, one is shown in FIG. 3 and FIG. 4, namely, thearrangement of each supporting roller in the rollers supporting hightemperature flat glass is changed from planar arrangement in space intocurved arrangement corresponding to the shape of the glass to be formed,so as to enable the glass to suffer bending deformation. Such bendingmechanism is called as the first mechanism below. FIG. 3 is a schematicdiagram showing the bending mechanism before deformation; FIG. 4 is aschematic diagram showing the bending mechanism after deformation. Inthe figures, 1 represents for a supporting roller; 2 represents for aglass plate and 3 represents for chillers. The other one is shown inFIG. 5, FIG. 6 and FIG. 7. The axis of each supporting roller in therollers supporting the high temperature flat glass bends itself so as toenable the supported glass to suffer bending deformation. Such bendingmechanism is called as the second mechanism below. FIG. 5 is a side viewshowing the bending mechanism before deformation; FIG. 6 is an end faceview showing the bending mechanism before deformation; FIG. 7 is aschematic diagram showing the bending mechanism after deformation. Thesupporting roller with flexional axis in the figures can be constitutedby a soft supporting roller, or constituted by combining a plurality ofspaced rollers through a connecting device (not shown in the figures).

In production, firstly, the flat glass is fed into a heating furnace andheated, and then the heated high temperature flat glass 2 is fed into abending device to suffer bending and tempering. After the hightemperature flat glass is fed to the rollers of a bending mechanism inthe bending device, the high temperature flat glass firstly undergoesbending, and then tempering is carried out by the cooling mechanism. Inthe cooling tempering process, in order to ensure that the upper andlower surfaces of the glass and each position of the same surface havethe same tempering effect as much as possible, the chillers in thetempering mechanism are arranged according to the corresponding shape ofthe curved glass subjected to bending to ensure uniform distance betweeneach chiller and the glass surface, simultaneously, the supportingroller or the supporting unit needs to be continually rotated back andforth to swing the glass, thereby avoiding the influence of thesupporting roller or the supporting unit on the tempering on the lowersurface of the glass. Finally, for the first bending mechanism after theglass plate is tempered, the finished product of the curved glass isoutput by the rollers after each supporting roller is reset to behorizontally positioned; and for the second bending mechanism, thefinished product of the curved glass is output by the rollers directly.

For the first bending mechanism, the curved glass subjected to bendingswings perpendicular to the axis of the supporting roller in thetempering process, the swinging curved glass always keep mutuallyparallel to the supporting roller and the chiller arrays positionedabove and under the supporting roller when the equal arc curved glass isprocessed; and the swinging curved glass is not parallel to the rollersand the chiller array when the unequal arc curved glass is processed, sothat the precise bending of the curved glass is affected, as well as theswinging curved glass will collide with the chiller thereabove and iscrushed, and only the second bending mechanism can be used forprocessing the unequal arc columnar curved tempered glass.

When the unequal arc columnar curved tempered glass is processed byusing the second bending mechanism, though the problem that the curvedglass collides with the chiller array thereabove while it undergoestempering and swinging is avoided, obvious wavy deformation alwaysexists at both sides of the formed curved glass adjacent to eachsupporting roller due to the fact that the high temperature flat glassis driven by a plurality of the supporting rollers arranged between therollers at intervals to complete the deformation of the glass, so it isdifficult to meet high quality requirement of the curved glass article.Certainly, wavy deformation also exists at both sides of the curvedglass adjacent to each supporting roller while the equal arc curvedtempered glass is processed by the second bending mechanism.

Moreover, as the front and back ends of the high temperature flat glassdepart from the glass heating furnace at different time and havedifferent outside cooling time, temperature gradient exists from thefront end to the back end of the high temperature flat glass while thehigh temperature flat glass has entered the bending mechanism. The frontend of the glass has lower temperature than that of the back end, andthe larger the size of the glass in the forward and backward direction,the higher the temperature gradient in the forward and backwarddirection, whereas the temperature before the glass is bent directlyrelates to the result of bending. Compared with the front end with lowtemperature, the back end with high temperature is easier to bend, sothat the curved tempered glass subjected to bending has a bit smallercurvature near the front end than that near the back end, and thequality of the curved tempered glass is also affected.

INVENTION CONTENTS

Aiming at the problem in the prior art, the present invention provides anovel device for processing a columnar curved tempered glass, and thebending quality of the columnar curved tempered glass manufactured byusing the device can be improved.

In order to fulfill the aforementioned purpose, the device forprocessing columnar curved tempered glass mainly comprises a glassheating furnace, a glass bending mechanism and a glass temperingmechanism connected sequentially, wherein the relative vertical positionof each supporting roller of the glass supporting rollers in the glassbending mechanism is adjustable, and the supporting rollers are arrangedin a curve corresponding to the shape of the glass to be formed so as toenable the supported glass to suffer bending deformation, and aconveying mechanism for outputting the formed curved glass in the axialdirection of the supporting roller is arranged at the clearance of therollers of the bending mechanism.

Further, the conveying mechanism can be formed by rollers or a conveyingbelt.

Further, the curved glass subjected to bending undergoes temperingtreatment in a passing-through type tempering treatment mode, namely,the curved glass begins to suffer tempering during entering thetempering mechanism, and tempering is completed as the curved glasspasses through the tempering mechanism.

Further, the glass bending mechanism is preset in according with thecolumnar curved glass to be formed, so that the high temperature flatglass begins to suffer bending deformation during entering the glassbending mechanism, and bending is completed when all the hightemperature flat glass has entered the bending station, therebyrealizing passing-through type bending of the high temperature flatglass.

Further, a plurality of auxiliary compression rollers are arranged inparallel above the roller table in the glass bending mechanism. Byutilizing the cooperation of the auxiliary compression rollers and thesupporting rollers in the lower rollers, the high temperature glass isdriven to feed the bending mechanism while suffering bendingdeformation, simultaneously, the auxiliary compression roller alsoinvolves the bending process of the high temperature glass to improvethe bending accuracy of the curved glass.

Further, a bar gate type precise bending mechanism is further connectedto the output end of the curved glass of the glass bending mechanism.Bending components in according with the shapes of the upper and lowersurfaces of the glass to be formed are respectively arranged above andbelow the passage through which the curved glass passes in the precisebending mechanism, and the bending components are constituted by aplurality of rollers arranged in width of the glass, or a softsupporting roller with axis capable of suffering bending deformation.

In the present invention, bending and tempering of the high temperatureflat glass are completed by two stations to break the normal procedurethat bending and tempering are carried out by a single bending deviceintensively, and the formed curved glass is output to a temperingstation in the columnar extending direction thereof to processtempering, therefore the curved glass is transferred from the bendingstation to the tempering station smoothly. The device is not only usedfor manufacturing equal arc columnar curved tempered glass products, butalso provides a novel technological approach for manufacturing unequalarc columnar curved tempered glass.

In the present invention, the high temperature flat glass undergoesbending deformation in a passing-through type bending mode, so that thethermal consistency when bending is carried out on the glass in the spanrange thereof is ensured, and the bending quality of the glass isfurther improved. The formed glass is tempered by adopting thepassing-through type tempering treatment mode, therefore the shapingquality of the curved glass and the quality of tempering treatment arefurther ensured.

In the present invention, by arranging the precise bending mechanism atthe output end of the bending device, the bending quality of the curvedglass is further improved.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of the cross section of equal arccolumnar-curved tempered glass;

FIG. 2(a)-2(d) are schematic diagrams of cross sections of 4 kinds ofunequal arc columnar-curved tempered glass;

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram showing the state before the deformationof the existing first glass bending mechanism;

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram showing the state after the deformation ofthe bending mechanism in FIG. 3;

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram showing the state before the deformationof the existing second glass bending mechanism;

FIG. 6 is a side view of the glass bending mechanism in FIG. 5;

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram showing the state after the deformation ofthe glass bending mechanism in FIG. 5;

FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram showing the arrangement state of eachstation in embodiment 1 of the present invention;

FIG. 9 is a state schematic diagram when the high temperature flat glassis transferred to the bending mechanism in the present invention;

FIG. 10 is a schematic diagram showing the state of the high temperatureflat glass subjected to bending in FIG. 9;

FIG. 11 is a structure diagram of the glass bending mechanism withauxiliary rollers used while a passing-through type bending mode isadopted in the present invention;

FIG. 12 is a schematic diagram showing the working state while thecurved glass subjected to bending undergoes tempering;

FIG. 13 is a schematic diagram showing the working state of anotherstructure of the tempering mechanism;

FIG. 14 is a schematic diagram showing the arrangement state of eachstation in the embodiment 2 of the present invention;

FIG. 15 is the first structural schematic diagram of the precise bendingmechanism;

FIG. 16 is the second structural schematic diagram of the precisebending mechanism.

In the figures: 1—supporting roller, 2—glass, 3—chiller, 4—auxiliarycompression roller, 5—transferring scroll wheel, 6—loading table,7—heating furnace, 8—glass bending station, 9—tempering station,10—unloading table, and 11—precise bending station.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Hereinafter, the present invention will be explained in detail with theaccompanying figures.

Embodiment 1

In the columnar curved tempered glass processing device of the presentinvention, each station is arranged as shown in FIG. 8, wherein anloading table 6, a heating furnace 7, a glass bending mechanism 8, atempering mechanism 9 and a unloading table 10 connected sequentiallyare arranged. The direction the curved glass formed by the glass bendingmechanism output from the bending mechanism 8 to the tempering mechanism9 is perpendicular to the direction the high temperature flat glassoutput from the heating furnace 7.

The aforementioned first bending mechanism is adopted to the glassbending mechanism 8, namely, the arrangement of each supporting rollerin the rollers supporting the high temperature flat glass is changedfrom a planar arrangement in space into a curved arrangementcorresponding to the shape of the glass to be formed, so as to enablethe glass to suffer bending deformation, and a transferring scroll wheel5 is arranged between the adjacent supporting rollers 1. The temperingmechanism 9 is formed by the chiller 3 and the rollers transferringglass between the upper and lower chiller.

While the columnar curved tempered glass is processed, as shown in FIG.9, FIG. 10, FIG. 11 and FIG. 12, firstly, the high temperature flatglass 2 heated by the heating furnace 7 is transferred to the glassbending mechanism 8 to suffer bending and then the curved glass isoutput by the transferring scroll wheel 5 in the bending mechanism ofthe glass bending mechanism 8 to the tempering mechanism 9 in thecolumnar extending direction of the curved glass, so as to suffertempering. Finally, the finished product of the columnar curved temperedglass is extracted from the unloading table 10. Of cause, thetransferring scroll wheel 5 in the bending mechanism can be formed byconveying mechanisms of other types, such as belt type conveyingmechanism.

The rollgang in the tempering mechanism of the tempering mechanism 9 inFIG. 12 is constituted by the transferring scroll wheel 5; however, therollgang can also be constituted by a soft supporting roller as shown inFIG. 13.

It remains to be explained that the curved glass manufactured in theexample is unequal arc columnar curved tempered glass, naturally, byadopting the device of the present invention, equal arc columnar curvedtempered glass can also be manufactured.

Embodiment 2

As shown in FIG. 14, a precise bending mechanism 11 can also be arrangedbetween the bending mechanism 8 and the tempering mechanism 9 in orderto improve the bending accuracy of the columnar curved tempered glass,in this way, the curved glass formed by the bending mechanism 8 issubjected to precise bending by the precise bending mechanism 11, andthen transferred into the tempering mechanism 9.

As shown in FIG. 13 or FIG. 14, the transferring scroll wheel 5 or thesoft supporting roller for clamping the upper and lower surface of thecurved glass simultaneously and transferring the curved glass forwardsimultaneously is arranged in the precise bending mechanism of theprecise bending mechanism 11. The scroll wheel or the supporting rollerin the precise bending mechanism is arranged according to thepredetermined shape of the curved glass, and further precise bending ofthe curved glass basically formed upstream is just completed.

In the aforementioned examples, the tempering mechanism on the temperingmechanism 9 can be on line before the curved glass is input, in thisway, the curved glass begins to suffer tempering during entering, andtempering is completed as long as passing through the temperingmechanism 9, thereby realizing passing-through type tempering of thecurved glass. Tempering treatment can also be carried out on the curvedglass after all the curved glass to be treated has been transferred tothe tempering mechanism. Besides the two operating mode, the temperingmechanism can also work in such a way, namely, the tempering mechanismis on line before the curved glass is input, then the curved glassbegins to suffer tempering during entering, then the tempering mechanismswings as well as undergoes tempering until tempering is completed afterall the glass has entered.

Bending can be carried on the high temperature flat glass by the bendingmechanism on the glass bending mechanism 8 in the aforementionedexamples when all the high temperature flat glass has entered. As wellas shown in FIG. 11, the glass bending mechanism is preset in the statecorresponding to the shape of the curved glass to be formed, in thisway, the high temperature flat glass undergoes bending once enters thebending mechanism, thereby realizing passing-through type bending of thehigh temperature flat glass.

When the bending of the glass is carried out in a passing-through typebending mode , preferably, a plurality of auxiliary compression rollers4 are arranged above the glass supporting roller in parallel in order toensure that the high temperature glass is capable of entering thebending mechanism smoothly. By utilizing the cooperation of theauxiliary compression rollers 4 and the bottom supporting roller 1, thehigh temperature glass is driven to feed the bending mechanism whilesuffering bending deformation, simultaneously, the auxiliary compressionrollers 4 also involve the bending process of the high temperature glassto improve the bending quality of the curved glass.

It is to be understood that the present invention is not to be limitedto the aforementioned description aiming at explaining the presentinvention and various equivalents without departing from the spirit ofthe present invention are within the scope of the present invention.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A device for forming a curved temperedglass comprising: a glass heating furnace for heating a flat glass; abending station for bending a previously heated flat glass therebyforming a curved glass; a tempering station for tempering the curvedglass, wherein the tempering station is separate from the bendingstation; wherein the flat glass is previously heated in the heatingfurnace and then is conveyed along a first direction out of the heatingfurnace and into the bending station; wherein the heated flat glass issubsequently bent in the bending station so that the curved glassextends along a second direction that is perpendicular to the firstdirection; and wherein the curved glass exits the bending station andenters the tempering station along the second direction; and wherein theheated flat glass is bent in the bending station via a bending mechanismthat comprises glass supporting rollers and transferring scroll wheelsand wherein each transferring scroll wheel is arranged between twoadjacent glass supporting rollers.
 2. The device of claim 1, wherein arelative vertical position of each glass supporting roller in thebending mechanism is adjustable, and the glass supporting rollers arearranged in a curve corresponding to the shape of the curved glass to beformed.
 3. The device according to claim 2, further comprising aconveying mechanism for outputting the formed curved glass along thesecond direction and wherein the conveying mechanism comprises rollersor a conveying belt.
 4. The device according to claim 2, furthercomprising a plurality of auxiliary compression rollers arrangedparallel and above the glass supporting rollers.
 5. The device accordingto claim 2, wherein an additional bending station is further interposedbetween the bending station and the tempering station and wherein theadditional bending station comprises bending components arranged aboveand below a passage through which the curved glass passes, and thebending components comprise a plurality of rollers arranged along awidth of the curved glass, or a soft supporting roller.
 6. The deviceaccording to claim 1, wherein a passing-through tempering treatment modeis used to treat the curved glass at the tempering station, namely, thecurved glass begins tempering during entering the tempering station, andtempering is completed as the curved glass passes through the temperingstation.
 7. The device according to claim 1, wherein a passing-throughtreatment mode is used to treat the previously heated flat glass at thebending station, so that the previously heated flat glass begins bendingduring entering the glass bending station, and bending is completed whenall of the previously heated flat glass has entered the bending station.